Announcing the special prize winners of our One For Me, One For You Holiday Quickfire Gifting Challenge! Throughout the year, Minted customers look for gifts for a variety of occasions. To put the finishing touch on their gifts, Minted customers love our fresh, unique wrapping paper designs. We received so many strong designs in all gift categories and we can’t wait to see them onsite and in our store! Congratulations to our winners!

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Announcing the special prize winners of our New Year, New Look, New Year’s Photo Card Challenge! Each year, more and more customers choose to send a New Year’s card to their loved ones to spread the holiday cheer in a festive way. Congratulations to the winners who submitted some truly dazzling designs!

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Photography has always been the way I explore the world. Whether it is a connection between people, a dance between light and water, or the grandeur of a sprawling landscape, I’m always looking for beautiful stories to tell. And I pretty much always have a camera or two attached to my hip, so it only made sense to take photos of my experience at the Minted office when I visited for a couple of days in October with a group of fellow Minted artists from around the U.S.

Here’s what I saw.

When we arrived outside the Minted headquarters on Front and Broadway, I was nervous. Incredibly. I’m accustomed to working at home with dogs at my feet and a computer screen that buffers me from the world. It was a bit surreal to think I’d be walking into the world that up until now had only existed online, in my mind.

This is the first thing you see, when you walk up a flight of stairs to the second floor: Minted’s reception area, with a striking copper wall. It is even more beautiful than the posts you see on Facebook—the light pouring through the windows is amazing.

I met Minted Engineer Gabriella Grandilli while she was coding in the comfort of one of Minted’s impromptu living rooms.

The Minted greeting card collection that’s currently carried in a number of Target stores is also on display in the Minted office. This was my first time seeing the Minted greeting cards upfront—they’re really beautiful, funny, and inspiring.

Megan Davis of Toast and Laurel, Lynn Knipe of Griffinbell Paper Co., and Amy Kross looked at a selection of Minted fabrics. I can’t emphasize enough how energizing it is to be able to touch, feel, and see the products that all of us Minted artists are designing. It really brings home that we are part of putting something real and beautiful into the world.

Announcing the special prize winners of our A Very Corporate Christmas Holiday Non-Photo and Corporate Card Challenge! In this challenge, we were looking for both non-photo and corporate holiday cards which have two distinct designs approaches. We received so many strong designs in both categories and we can’t wait to see these cards in mailboxes around the world. A big congratulations to our special prize winners!

“Black 01” Minted art on canvas by Catalina Somolinos of Catilustre, a Spanish Minted artist who lives in Germany.

When Minted Art launched in 2012, five years after the company’s founding, Minted became publicly recognized for what it had already undeniably become: a global community of independent artists. Before then, many thought of Minted as primarily a stationery e-retailer. But the vision had always been far bolder.

Early on, we recognized that the breadth and range of talent within our artist community was incredibly deep. There were graphic designers, illustrators, painters, and creative artists of all kinds. Minted artists clearly needed more canvases, more ways to reach a broader audience in a more comprehensive way. Unleashing their creative output into the $45 billion global art market became a leading drive.

Minted Art launched in May 2012 with a carefully curated selection of limited-edition art prints created by our global community of artists, providing further access to income opportunities, exposure, and creative community. The earliest offerings were primarily graphic design works, including illustrations and customizable children’s art. Photography and prints of painted works would follow. Minted’s prints were and continue to be produced on museum-quality, cotton rag archival paper.

Since 2012, Minted Art has evolved significantly, with each new launch part of a continuous and deliberate effort to provide Minted artists and consumers the best platform to sell and acquire art through both traditional and emerging channels.

A Timeline of Minted Art

Spring 2012. Launch of Minted Art with a percentage of sales from children’s and nursery art supporting Every Mother Counts, a nonprofit advocating for maternal health around the world.

Spring 2013. Minted’s first West Elm partnership art challenge

Summer 2014. Self-launch of artworks debuts for non-custom prints. The introduction of self-launch allows artists to include works in their portfolio beyond those submitted to challenges.

Announcing the special prize winners of our Do You Hear What I Hear? Religious Christmas Photo Card Challenge. Last year we saw tremendous growth from our religious assortment, fueled by Minted artists’ beautiful non-secular design creations. In 2017, we want to continue to showcase spiritual aspects of the holiday season – from scripture greetings to faith-centric imaging – in a fresh and innovative way. A big congratulations to the winners who impressed us with their beautiful designs!

Announcing the special prize winners of our The Better Together Minted Greeting Card Challenge! For the first time, we challenged both writers and designers to come up with witty and clever copy and unique designs for greeting cards! We were very impressed by the level of talent and collaboration in this challenge and we’re so excited to introduce these greeting cards to the masses. Congratulations, winners!

Please note, some minor design and copy changes may have been made to the original submission image in preparation for final production.

Announcing the special prize winners of our It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like the Holiday Photo Card Challenge! In this challenge, we looked to our community of independent artists to push the boundaries of holiday card design. Our customers count on Minted to find fresh, modern, innovative designs that will set them apart from others in the stack, highlighting their family photo and stating their yearly holiday message in a unique way. Congratulations, winners!

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After getting engaged in New York City, Jane Song and Jonathan Kim decided to tie the knot in Seattle, where the bride’s parents live. “We were expecting many wedding guests from Asia,” Jane says, “so we thought Seattle would be a convenient location.” Knowing they wanted to marry in a historic venue, the couple stumbled upon The Admiral’s House, a stately, former naval residence with panoramic views of Elliott Bay and the city skyline. The couple chose “Gallery Abstract Art” by Alethea & Ruth as their wedding invitation and worked with a Minted designer to customize the colors to reflect Seattle’s lush-green setting.

How did you and Jonathan meet?We met at Tufts University, where we both attended (Jane: class of 2010; Jonathan: class of 2008). We met one fall evening during which we ended up in a wild goose chase with a mutual acquaintance, and ended the night by ordering pizza with a group of friends. We started dating the following summer when we were both interning in Seoul.

Tell us about the proposal!We had just returned home to Manhattan after a trip to Boston and Cape Cod in August 2014, where we did all of our favorite things (visiting old haunts, a trip to Fenway Park, and dwelling in our love for New England). I was in PJs and on my laptop, sitting on Jonathan’s couch. Out of the blue, he asked me to marry him and whipped out a ring—it was lovely and casual. Then we went to eat at the Odeon (an old-timey French bistro in Tribeca), where I couldn’t stop crying into my frisée salad (which will forever be remembered as the “engagement salad”). We ended the day celebrating with friends at the Ace Hotel.

Who made your wedding dress?
It was an Enzoani dress that was customized with a bolero. I also wore a pair of multicolor flower-patterned Manolo Blahniks.

What was the wedding-dress shopping process like?
I wanted a classic lace dress (my inspiration was Charlotte’s second wedding dress in Sex and the City), and my dress was the first dress I tried on. I ended up trying it on in two different stores—in New York City as well as in Chicago—so I thought it was meant to be.

How did you find your wedding venue?We decided to get married in Seattle because that’s where my parents live, and where I was planning on studying for the New York bar exam during the summer of 2015. It is also the halfway point between New York (where Jonathan was) and Seoul (where his parents live). We were expecting many wedding guests from Asia, so we thought Seattle would also be a convenient location.

It was very important to our families that the venue be: (1) immaculate, (2) conveniently accessible for our out-of-town guests, and (3) have good feng shui. Jonathan and I wanted a historic venue rather than a hotel wedding; I visited a few venues in Seattle after we got engaged but had to return to law school in Chicago. I stumbled upon The Admiral’s House website and learned it was a historic naval admiral’s home that was recently converted into a venue. My parents went to visit the site, sent us pictures, and we fell in love with the location (in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle), how cozy and private it felt, and its gorgeous location on top of a hill with an outstanding view of the Elliott Bay and the Seattle skyline. It just felt right. My dad loved that we were high up, “close to the sky.” We also thought it was good luck that the available date in August was August 15, the national liberation day in Korea.

Click through for more from Jane and Jonathan’s wedding…

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